Still Alive
by sakuyavalentine
Summary: Multi-chapter. Chris x Jill. Claire. Wesker.
1. Part I

**Still Alive  
**(part I)

.

"You have changed.  
I have changed  
just like you..."

- Lisa Miskovsky – _Still Alive_

.

As the African sky began to lighten with signs of dawn, the bright, white-yellow sun peeking over the horizon and spilling beams of brightness across the uneven landscape and vast stretches of unrippled ocean, the engines of the stolen prototype of the 2018 Next Generation Bomber revved to life, raising the aircraft with little effort and guided it towards the steaming summit of the inactive volcano that had, moments ago, been alive with combat. Timing was imperative, and only when the monitors stretched across the cockpit dashboard failed to read signs of surrounding bodies did the bomber approach the crash sight of Tricell's Tupolev Tu-160 and its supply of the Uroboros virus.

The bomber circled the volcano like an eagle preparing to attack a rat scurrying across the earth and swept in close enough for the underside of the craft to glow white-hot and cool, burnt, back at the lab. Within the hanger, half a dozen men suited up in heat-resistant, hazmat suits and looped steel hooks and tethered rope through latches on the wall. When ready, they approached the open hanger and glanced out, mentally calculating the best method of descent. They held in their hands vacuum sealed hazardous waste cases and collections of medical equipment – glass tubes, syringes, unused needles, beakers and petri dishes.

A woman, middle-aged with a tight bun of blonde hair and brown eyes – that shone almost gold in the heated volcano light – wearing a white lab coat and black heels, grasped a bar above the open doorway and shouted over the whirling engines, blasting wind and roar of the volcano. With her free hand, she pointed at each suited man in turn, bestowing him with a specific job, then backed away as they leaped from the bomber, hovered a moment in mid-air, and touched down on the heated, black basalt. The woman in the hanger watched, almost fearfully, as half of the men rummaged through broken boxes, twisted metal and a large, elliptical tank labelled, Uroboros. The other three opened large cases and began constructing a bizarre device that appeared straight out of a science fiction novel with the speed and precision of a mechanic changing tires during a Nascar race. At the end of the device, they twisted on a type of hook and lowered it into the bubbling lava.

Twenty nail-biting minutes later, the suited men each raised a thumb and were reeled back into the hanger. The three explorers offered full cases of the virus in glass tubes, each labelled accordingly and locked tightly in the chance of violent flight. The woman nodded – the samples were small and, unless they were careful, would not last long. But they had no choice; it would do – and motioned towards highly secure containment units in which to deposit the samples until they'd returned to the lab.

Finally, she turned to the three men crouched over the heap of a creature they'd dragged from the lava. It was slightly greater than six feet in length, comprised of fleshy black tentacles, large, jagged sheets of shrapnel and had, she presumed, once been human. It was difficult to tell the identity of the creature, for the lava had severely charred most of the flesh and melted strips of leather into the sinewy muscle. The head was mutilated, by apparent explosive force and gratuitous degrees of heat, from both the lava and the explosion, leaving a fractured cranium, singed brain matter and dry tufts of blond hair around skinless patches of facial tissue and a dislodged jaw missing several teeth.

With a slight pop of her knees, the women knelt. The stench of burnt flesh, melted steel and leather would have made most people gag and vomit, but she was a scientist and had smelled her share of nauseous odours as she'd dissected the dead, skinned the living and watched animals rot in their cages from the inside out.

When he'd cooled enough to touch without burning her palm, the woman stroked his smooth head and traced her finger down the exposed bone of his once chiseled cheek. Her dark gaze softened and her voice became tender. "Oh Albert..." she cooed. "You naughty little child..."

.

_to be continued..._

_._

**Disclaimer: **All _Resident Evil _characters are property of Capcom and their individual creators.

**Notes: **Finally, another multi-chapter story! I know...I should probably finish my _Devil May Cry _story first (ironically, another Capcom game) but I know where I want to go...just not how to get there. So it might be a while before I update it again, sadly.

Classes are finished for the holidays so expect more fics. 16FangsofWrath has been extremely patient with me and I promise I'll have her fic up soon! I had a Eureka moment so I should have something concocted soon, along with more chapters of this fic and some _Assassin's Creed _ones, since I recently completed the latest game in the franchise.


	2. Part II

**Still Alive **

(part II)

.

"For how long  
must I wait?  
I know there's something wrong..."

- Lisa Miskovsky – _Still Alive_

.

When they'd climbed into the helicopter that night, all those years ago, they'd promised they'd never return to this accursed place. It was here that the nightmare began, that their perfectly ordinary worlds shattered and faded away in the wind like the dried golden leaves of autumn. That night changed them forever...

"And yet, here we are," Jill observed, pushing her palms into her spine to alleviate the ache that burrowed deep in her back and stared down the empty Raccoon City streets.

Despite the bright summer sun and cloudless sky, the wind whirled eerily as it blew through the Arklay Mountains and deserted streets. In the parks, chains jingled in the breeze, swings swaying slightly. Toys lay abandoned in the sandbox and strollers lay overturned beside splintered benches. Jill thought she could hear the forgotten laughter of the children that once played here, but knew it was only her imagination and too many horror movies.

Far from the epicentre where the government had dropped the bomb to neutralize the city of infectees, buildings stood with peeling paint and dusty brick. Shattered windows exposed the dark innards of shops and cafes with rundown appliances and broken Welcome signs. Customers' meals sat, mouldy, on tables, glasses overturned. Stuffing oozed from cushions and chairs and stools lay scattered on the floor. Mannequins seemed to watch them with dead eyes from store windows and cars remained parked as they had been originally, testaments of the thriving city Raccoon City had once been.

"Twenty years," Chris stated as they moved onto the sidewalk, if for no other reason than instinct. "Has it really been that long?"

Jill nodded and after catching sight of a child's discarded teddy bear, looped her arm through his and walked just a little closer. Her belly bumped against his elbow, and almost in response to the accidental poke, the slumbering child within objected with a jab of its knee. Were she still a single, childless agent, the dead city would have disturbed her. As an expecting mother, it downright frightened her. She was glad Chris had come; his sheer manliness and status as husband and father, made her feel safer somehow.

"Hard to believe, isn't it? Some days, it seems to far off, so...bizarre – as odd as that sounds – to have been anything more than a dream. Other days, the memories are so vivid, so real...it's like it was only last night that we were seeking refuge in that mansion." She thought about that night: the coolness of the evening, the obscure, starless heavens, the heavy fog. It was supposed to be a routine investigation. Internal disturbances, nothing too bizarre. Who knew taking on the assignment would have led to everything it did?

They were amazed to find their old S.T.A.R.S. headquarters still standing, though in a severe state of disrepair. The brick structure stood darkly among the flanking shops with its barred windows and heavily secured doors. Chris approached the side door that led into an alley filled with old cardboard boxes and an overflowing, green dumpster that smelled worse than a rotting carcass and buzzed with flies. The little box hanging beside a maze of pipes sparked as it swayed on drooping wires, inoperational. The door, however, remained permanently unlocked and gave way with a firm shove of his shoulder.

The station was in as much disarray as the rest of Raccoon City's fine establishments, likely knocked about by the blast of the bomb. Walls had been demolished and doors hung loosely in splinters on squeaking hinges. In the break room, the food in the fridge had long since expired, a carton of cream now solid and crumbling like cottage cheese. A half-eaten sandwich was green and fuzzy and ants had built a small hill around spilt sugar. A cracked pot of coffee, with the brown liquid still inside, sat in the coffee maker surrounded by crusty, brown rings.

After exploring the old rooms, remembering the people who'd sat in the chairs, read the reports, talked to her over snacks in the break room, Jill wandered into what had once been Chris' office. It wasn't much, but he'd been new at the time. His wasn't so much an office as it was a cubicle, a sectioned off space for all of his reports and files.

He stood with his back to her beside the overturned desk, standing upon scattered papers. The contents of his desk – paper weights, pencils, pens, a solar-powered calculator – lay on the floor beneath a thick layer of dust and dirt. His computer had smashed, the screen in pieces, with tangled wires strewn about and the keyboard upside down with the keys dislodged. Filing cabinets sat with their drawers open and his chair had rolled clear across the room. She noticed after a moment, that he did not walk about as she did, noting the damage that had befallen the place, remembering... or the time that had immortalized it as a museum of sorts. Instead, he stood as though transfixed, and as she approached, she noticed a glimmer of gold in his hands.

"Old photo?" she asked and her voice appeared to startle him from some world of memory. He nodded slowly and she rose up on her toes to glance over his shoulder. Despite herself, her stomach plummeted when she saw the old image, and her heart began to race.

.

_to be continued..._

_._

**Disclaimer: **All _Resident Evil _characters are property of Capcom and their individual creators.

**Notes: **All the chapters are short. Sorry about that. I originally had the next two chapters as one really long chapter, but I thought that it might cut away from the intensity of the story if it was too long. Besides, I don't expect this story to be all that long anyways. Might as well make it seem that way with a lot of short chapters!

Hopefully, the site will let me do this since I believe they're affiliates (the set up is exactly like this site). I've opened an account on to post samples of novels I'm working on. I'm terrible with making choices and focusing, so I'm hoping that readers will be able to tell me which ideas they like best. To read, please see: .com/u/709958/ (if the link doesn't work, search "Evelyn Adams Fictionpress" on Google and it'll be the first link).


	3. Part III

**Still Alive  
**(part III)

.

"Your concrete heart isn't beating  
and you tried to  
make it come alive..."

- Lisa Miskovsky – _Still Alive_

.

_The photo was taken in December of '97, shortly after Chris joined S.T.A.R.S. It was Christmas time. She remembered it'd been a cold evening. The dark sky was starless, covered by thick, brown clouds, and visibility had been limited thanks to a clipper that came in from the other side of the mountains. Snow blew in sheets, sweeping up against buildings and into hills that drivers would curse in the morning as children played on them beside the busy, slippery streets. Cars that were not sliding on icy roads were buried, tucked beneath white flakes like pillows beneath a blanket, and pedestrians sought sanctuary from the storm wherever they could. _

_Joseph Frost and most of Alpha team had gone home for the night. They were almost finished, completing files and ensuring all the records were up to date. It had been a generally quiet day. There'd been plenty of accidents thanks to the snow, but regardless of how long they lived in such a climate, people tended to forget how things changed with the weather, and it was the Raccoon City police who'd handled everything like that._

_Jill had had no family in Raccoon City, nor it appeared, did anyone else. Barry's family lived a town over and Chris' only relative had been Claire, who too lived elsewhere. And Wesker...at the time, Jill had merely assumed him to be a workaholic. She'd never spotted a ring on his hand and he never spoke of a wife or children. So that evening, as their shifts ticked, minute by minute to an end and everyone else was bustling to finish their reports before clocking out, she'd suggested they head over to the mall for coffee, shopping and to see all of the decorations._

"_I'm in," Barry had said. "I have to pick up some gifts for the wife and kids anyways."_

_Chris nodded and sat down in a chair to untie his shoes. "Why not? Beats going home." When the laces were undone, he'd loosened them with his toes and kicked them into the corner across the room. They banged against the drywall, drawing an unamused scowl from Wesker, who'd been standing in the doorway of his office with a handful of manila files. "And Jill, you're a girl right?"_

_She'd frowned and planted her fists on her hips, silently reminding him of her curved silhouette and generous breasts. "Last time I checked."_

"_Maybe you can help me pick something up for Claire. I can't think of anything she'd like," he'd concluded, oblivious, and stuffed his pant legs into his boots. "Girls are hard to shop for."_

"_Guys are hard to shop for," Jill argued. "I bet you, ninety percent of the items on today's market are suitable for a female consumer. Even quote-on-quote 'guy' stuff is appreciated by most women." She ticked them off on her fingers. "Clothing, shoes, jewelry, perfume, chocolates, flowers, dolls and other plush toys, books, movies, tapes and trinkets are your typical girl gifts, but I don't know anyone, guy or girl, who wouldn't like a TV, bike or car, even games and sports equipment."_

"_She's right," Barry agreed with a grin. _

"_Maybe," Chris yielded in defeat. Suddenly the trouble of finding Claire a gift made him look stupid rather than sympathetic. _

"_Have fun, you three," Wesker said, rounding his desk. His ever-present sunglasses sat perched on the bridge of his nose, sliding slightly. With his middle finger, he pushed them higher._

_Jill zipped her coat to her chin and adjusted the fur-lined hood so that it sat comfortably down her back. "You're not coming with us, Captain?"_

"_No thank you, Jill. I still have some work to do before I call it quits for the evening. Besides, the holidays aren't really my thing." He waved his hand, as though dismissing them. "If you're so inclined, you can pick me up a candy cane from Santa's Village. A blue one, perhaps, or one of those sweeter pink ones – they're cherry I believe. I don't care for peppermint. Goodnight." And with a gentle flick of his wrist, he threw the office door shut._

_Jill, Chris, rocking back and forth on his heels and stuffing his hands in his pockets, and Barry exchanged silent glances. Finally, after a long moment, "Bah humbug!" Chris exclaimed, cracking smiles and chuckles out of his teammates. "Let's go. Are we taking our own cars, or pooling?"_

"_Let's pool," Barry suggested. His truck could get through anything, while both Jill and Chris drove two-door sports cars that objected with high-pitched squeals in the cold. "I'll give you guys a ride home if you need it, and then pick you up again in the morning. It's better than trying to brave this storm."_

"_Thanks Barry!" Chris said and smacked the elder man hard on the back affectionately. They made their way towards the door, receiving sympathetic looks from the overnight workers and janitorial department – who were thankful it was not them heading out into the snow, frigid winds and chaotic streets – and Jill couldn't help but glance over her shoulder at the closed office door. _

_Through the window, she watched Wesker spin his chair with his knee and plop down on the cushion. He sandwiched the telephone between his shoulder and ear, and turned towards the computer monitor, checking and responding to mail. While a program loaded on the monitor, he opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out a large stack of papers, held together by an oversized clip. He spun around in the chair and picked a binder, seemingly at random, from a nearby shelf and used it as reference as he flipped through the stack, skimmed the contents, and made markings on every few pages. As he worked, his brow knit together and the lines around his lips seemed more pronounced._

"_Jill?" The sound of Chris' voice shook her from her daze. She blinked a few times._

"_Hold on a sec." And she stalked across the room and rapped firmly against the door._

_It was a moment before Wesker gave her permission to enter. She opened the door and stood in the frame, not sure at first why she'd come back. As she searched for her voice, she glanced around the office, having only been inside a handful of times. Wesker was awfully private about personal matters. She noted the cleanliness of the office. Everything had a place and appeared to be stored for the easiest access. Binders and books were stacked on shelves according to content and in alphabetical order. Papers were impeccably neat, all pens stored together, all pencils sharpened to a point. The computer was at a particular angle so glare made it difficult to see the exact nature of the display on the monitor unless seated directly in front of it and even the thermal mug nestled in the corner of the desk on a plastic coaster was positioned so that he need not fumble in search of the handle._

_Wesker had excused himself from his call, replacing the receiver on the cradle and had intended to proceed with his work while she spoke, but rose his head when she failed to do so. "Yes, Jill? Was there something you needed?"_

_Clenching her hands into fists at her sides, Jill drew a long, deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. "I really think you should come with us, Sir!"_

_He stared at her for the longest time, peering over the rim of his glasses, and she realized for the first time how beautiful and blue his eyes were. Jill stood, trembling, wondering if she'd done the right thing. It wasn't that she felt any particular affection for him – though working alongside people the way their team did led to some pretty strong bonds – she simply didn't think it right for anyone to spend the holidays alone at work. _

_After what felt like years, he expelled an exasperated sigh; he knew she wasn't going to let this one go. He rolled back and wedged his fingers between the lenses and his face and rubbed the fatigue from his eyes. "Very well. I'll come along if it'll make you feel better."_

_Jill smiled and stood a little taller. In retrospect, she wondered if it wasn't all just part of his elaborate scheme._

"_But not for too long," he cautioned, slipping on his coat – besides his S.T.A.R.S. uniform he donned while on a mission, all of his clothing was black. "I have things to do."_

"_We'll only be a few hours, tops," she promised and together they returned to Barry and Chris, the latter of whom was stuck riding in the back with Jill while Wesker called shotgun. _

_It was a task to find parking. The lot was filled with last-minute holiday shoppers who had forgotten the rules of the road. Most vehicles straddled the lines of their stalls, allowing no room for anything larger than a bike to park beside. They ended up at the far end outside a department store and had to walk five minutes. At one point, Chris slipped on a patch of ice buried underneath the ankle-deep snow. Reaching out for something to help maintain his balance, he ended up grasping the smooth, leather sleeve of Wesker's coat. With a roar of surprise, both men tumbled with a flurry of flakes, landing in a tangled heap on their backs._

"_Chris!" Wesker shouted, and a vein bulged in his forehead as he made a motion that clearly indicated his desire to strangle the newbie. Chris responded with an awkward chuckle and handed his superior his sunglasses, which had tumbled off during the fall. _

_After they'd picked themselves up and dusted off the snow, they continued on, Wesker walking as far from Chris as he could. He examined his sunglasses for bends or scratches and perched them on his nose once more. Jill stuffed her gloved hands in her pocket and gestured at him with her elbow._

"_If you don't mind my asking," she began, "why do you wear those? Isn't it hard to see?"_

_She assumed he would ignore the question, or remind her that it was not her place to ask such invasive ones, but, surprising her for the second time that evening, he answered quite calmly, "When I was a child, I often suffered terrible headaches. After extensive tests, doctors realized I was abnormally sensitive to the florescent lights – without realizing it, I could see them flicker with each passing electron – so I wore sunglasses to cut down the intensity. I suppose I've just gotten used to them. I see you as clearly as you see me."_

_He said nothing more, and she nodded, surprised that he'd said anything at all. It made sense, she supposed. _

_They entered the mall, finding even at such a late hour, that it was packed. Men, women and children, all bundled in parkas, scarves and mittens, sipping hot drinks and eating food from the outlets in the food court, walked the aisles and corridors of the mall. They stopped outside shops to get a closer look at particular items or to go inside. There was a long line at Santa's Village, where attendants in elf costumes shook rattle-filled stuffed toys to get screaming infants to smile for the picture._

_It took them three hours to complete their shopping, due to jam-packed stores and long lines, even after breaking into two groups; Chris and Jill in one, Barry and Wesker in the other. Jill resisted the urge to try on all the pretty clothes and bought gift baskets filled with selected cheeses, breads, chocolates, jams and wine samples for her parents. Then, after much debate, she managed to help Chris pick out a blouse and pair of jeans for Claire that he thought was too revealing but she said was sexy. When they met up again, Barry showed off the toys he'd gotten for his children, and a diamond necklace for his wife with as many stones as years they'd been married. Wesker joined empty-handed. _

_Almost in unison, their stomachs announced that they were hungry, so they found a table – after a forty-five minute wait in the lounge – at a sit-down restaurant at the end of one of the mall's off-shooting branches. Chris and Barry ordered beers, while Jill and Wesker settled for the aged wine waiting for them on the table when they were seated. _

_Jill raised her glass, the liquid within glittering like a ruby. "A toast," she said, "to good friends, partners and the best captain S.T.A.R.S. has ever seen!" And the foursome clinked their glasses together with smiles and a small cheer. As they drank to their team, and to a happy new year, three of them were certain they would be friends forever..._

.

_to be continued..._

_._

**Disclaimer: **All _Resident Evil _characters are property of Capcom and their individual creators.

**Notes:** According to the _Resident Evil _wikia, sources in the games state that Chris was discharged from the military when he was 23-24 and then he wandered around the US before settling in Raccoon City and joining S.T.A.R.S. So either Capcom pulled a funny, or the site was wrong by either stating when he was born (1973) or what age he left the military because several games – I admit I've only played 4 and 5 completely. I have 2, Outbreak and Code Veronica but haven't played them yet – state that the Manor Incident occurred in 1998, which was when Chris was apparently still with the Air Force. So...I'm saying he joined in '97 regardless of what age he was supposedly discharged.


	4. Part IV

**Still Alive  
**(part IV)

.

"No shadows.  
Just red lights.  
Now I'm here to rescue you..."

- Lisa Miskovsky – _Still Alive_

.

The photo had been taken shortly thereafter, by a touring couple whose plans had been foiled by the weather. In it, the four of them were crammed together awkwardly so as to fit in the shot and get in a bit of the festive background without the other shoppers as well, but smiling.

"It really makes you think, doesn't it?" Chris said. "All of that, all of those days, were built on a lie. We were all just a bunch of fools, pawns in Wesker's sick game."

Jill stared at him, noting the furrows in his brow and the lines around his eyes and the way his jaw tightened. But there was something else...a moistness in his gaze that suggested sorrow and pain. Chris was the strongest man she knew. After Raccoon City, he trained harder at the gym, knowing what Umbrella was capable of producing, and realizing that good aim and a quick finger was not always enough. After her apparent death at Spencer's European estate, he'd trained even harder. Day and night. He'd changed his diet to redder meats, eggs and protein shakes, cutting out junk food, beer and coffee, intensified his workout regiment and jogged around his community twice a day, gaining over a hundred pounds of muscle in three years. Nearly a decade later, while his hair was starting to grey and his skin to wrinkle with age, that hadn't changed. He was still in top physical condition, rivalling, and even superior to, the new B.S.A.A. recruits who were a great deal younger.

And yet, from the look on his face, she reminded herself that even he was more human than she perhaps gave him credit for. He'd been a young man once, full of ambition, pride and want. After leaving the military, he'd joined S.T.A.R.S. as a way to not only help people, not only receive an income doing something he was good at, but find a place where he belonged. He didn't belong in the military and until that foggy July night, he thought he belonged in Raccoon City, with them.

Just as he had been for her and Barry and the rest of Alpha team, Wesker had been their captain, but more than that, he had been their mentor, their guide, and their friend. It was a crushing emotional blow for Chris when the reality of Wesker's treachery rose to the surface.

She wanted to tell him that it was all right. She wanted to tell him that she knew, deep in her heart and soul, that despite all the revelations of Wesker's deception and the decade-long nightmare that was shortly to follow, that moments like those, moments when they were together and happy, were real.

But she didn't say it because she didn't know that. Albert Wesker was, and had always been, a selfish, lying megalomaniac. "Captain Wesker" was a facade, a mask he'd worn, a part he'd played. He was no more genuine in his allegiance to their cause than she had been to his while under his control.

And yet...Old memories, old feelings, died hard. Wesker had been like a father, or a brother to her, in some ways. She'd worked with him longer than Chris had, developed feelings for him that even the deepest form of deception couldn't tarnish completely. She wanted to believe that there'd been some truth in the affection he'd shown as their leader. She wanted to believe that even the worst monster bore a spark of goodness deep in his heart.

"Let's go," she suggested instead and took his hand, leading him away from the rubble. Chris thought about destroying the picture, even going as far as to begin to tear it down the middle. But then, he stopped, drew a deep breath and tucked it inside the folds of his coat for safe-keeping. S.T.A.R.S. had been an important part of his life; he'd made good friends, formidable enemies and fell in love. Hard as it was, he didn't want to forget.

They left the station and walked the streets for a little while longer. They stopped by Jill's old apartment, finding only a hole in the ground and the remnants of tenant life there. Finally, when they'd relived every memory they'd experienced in the town, they jumped back into Chris' truck, which had been left parked outside the city limits, and followed an unpaved trail up into the Arklay Mountains. Spencer's estate had long ago been destroyed, the splintered beams and crumbling foundation now overgrown with moss and weeds. Birds made nests in the walls, raccoons burrowed in the floorboards, and dogs birthed puppies in shadowed overhangs to protect them from the elements.

They stared at the mansion for a long while. Around them, cicadas hummed, birds chirped and the wind blew, rustling leaves like strips of paper. The summer sun beat down, partially shaded by the massive trees and their arching branches. Jill felt her skin start to warm and thought about applying the sunscreen she kept in a box in Chris' trunk.

As he wandered the rubble, examining tufts of carpet and glittering crystal from shattered chandeliers, she pulled open the truck door, rummaging around in the back. They'd brought a basket with them of lunch foods for the trip, a blanket in case it grew cold, a canvas bag containing a semi-automatic rifle and a box of ammunition, just in case.

Finally, she found the sunscreen and stood in the open doorway, shaking and squeezing the bottle until it offered a large dollop with a wet squeak. She closed the cap again and started massaging the lotion into her skin, squinting as the door swung in the breeze, the sunlight bouncing off the side mirrors.

Suddenly, the leaves rustled and the sunlight flickered, and Jill froze in mid rub to glance over her shoulder. She peered into the underbrush across the way, where the bright clearing turned to shaded forest. A deer popped its head out of the bushes, gnawing on some leaves, and stared at her for a long while until it decided she was boring and went about on its way.

She smiled and laughed at herself with a shake of her head. Being back here left her unnerved. She supposed she was letting her anxiety get the best of her.

The glass of the truck window splintered and shattered with a thunderous pop. Jill ducked for cover behind the door, fearfully aware that her legs were still dangerously exposed.

Chris abandoned whatever it was he was looking at and searched for her. "Jill!"

"Chris." She wasn't sure if she should tell him she was all right or to take cover. Another bullet ricocheted off the side of the door, so close she'd felt the rush of air as it passed by her face. She whirled around. The second shot came from a completely different direction than the first.

"Get under the truck!" he shouted and drew the pistol he kept holstered beneath his arm. He spun around, searching the forest for shadows or little red lights. Another shot hit the top of the truck. Another shattered the windshield. The shots seemed to fire from different angles. How many snipers were there?

From her hiding spot under the truck, Jill watched Chris' legs as he moved around, ducking behind trees and large rocks. She lay on her belly, hoping that whatever was going on would stop soon; the baby was objecting to the pressure, kicking the sides of the womb as though trying to get out.

Finally, Chris caught sight of something in the shadows when it stopped to make another shot. A stream of sunlight struck a silver helmet with an impenetrable visor and black markings along the sides. The rest of the sniper's body was covered in a bulletproof metal, covered in the same black markings and an army's worth of weaponry, from multiple firearms and a turret's supply of ammo, to grenades and two short swords sheathed across its back. He looked like a mercenary from a futuristic, science fiction comic book.

Chris aimed quickly and shot at the figure, who seemed to sense the bullet before it left the barrel and vanished as though he had never been there at all. Chris' blood ran cold. He hadn't seen someone move like that since…

But there was no time to think of that. He spun, listening to every crunch, every rustle, every cock of a hammer. But he was human. He was too slow and a bullet came whizzing through the air, clipping his shoulder. He groaned and swore as blood spurted from the wound and ran down his arm, the new hole panging as his heart drubbed.

The masked sniper appeared from the shadows into the bright clearing, darting back and forth like a hummingbird. His firm boot connected with Chris' jaw, sending him skidding through the dirt and his gun clattering out of arm's reach. With Chris down, his helmeted head, shining in the sunlight, turned and focused on the truck.

Jill! Chris scrambled for the gun, forgetting the pain in his arm as he crawled on all fours and leapt at it. He raised his arms and, aiming high – for he expected him to disappear and he didn't want the bullets to accidentally hit her – he emptied the magazine. The figure dodged all but one bullet, which caught him in the knee and made him stumble. Metal clanged as it hit the ground, the gravel and sticks scratching the flawless surface of the armour.

It only took a moment and then the masked man was on his feet again. Deciding Chris no threat, he checked the truck like a cornerback tackling a wide receiver. The truck flipped over like a stack of cards, leaving Jill completely exposed.

She screamed and rolled over, trying to stumble to her feet, but he easily outran her, scooping her up under one arm. She kicked and squirmed but with one sharp strike to the back of the head with the side of his hand, she slumped forward, unconscious. He turned to Chris and for a moment, Chris thought he could see through the dark visor. Eyes, like an angry dragon's, glared at him before leaping into the air and disappearing into the forest.

Chris jumped to his feet and ran after them, faster and faster until he thought his lungs would explode in his chest.

_I can't lose her again! _he thought, bracing himself against low hanging branches. He tripped over an exposed tree root, slamming hard into the ground, his teeth clashing together and his skull vibrating. He wheezed, and blood dribbled down his knee. His arm began to ache again and he stared at the now quiet and still forest. They were gone…

_Jill…JILL!_

.

_to be continued..._

_._

**Disclaimer: **All _Resident Evil _characters are property of Capcom and their individual creators.

**Notes:** Things are starting to get interesting now. Okay…I'm assuming my plans at being mysterious aren't going over very well considering the first part, but I couldn't make it make sense without introducing it that way so I've pretty much just done what Capcom did in the _Resident Evil 5 _trailer and given away an identity beforehand, totally eliminating any surprise. Oh well…


	5. Part V

**Still Alive  
**(part V)

.

"Oh I'm still alive.  
I'm still alive.  
I can't apologise no..."

- Lisa Miskovsky – _Still Alive_

.

When Jill awoke, neck stiff and drowsy, she wasn't sure how much time had passed. She found herself in an empty holding cell, with whitewashed walled and furnished with nothing more than a faintly padded bed and a squat, steel toilet. Above her, a fluorescent light shone dimly, humming and flickering. Across the way, there was only a single door without any handle with which to open it. Beside that, behind a tinted window, a woman in a lab coat stood and stared at her as guests stare at animals at the zoo. She must have been middle aged, but there was a wisdom in her eerie gaze that seemed to offer more. Medium build and slender, she had a bun of blonde hair and light brown eyes, and under her lab coat, she wore a fitted polyester body suit with metal-like armour and mauve markings along the sides.

Was she the sniper who'd shot at them? Or had the patterns been different? A different colour maybe? She couldn't remember; her skull throbbed every time she tried.

On the other side of the glass, the woman fiddled with a deck of controllers. There was a crackle and her voice streamed in from speakers invisible in the ceiling tiles. It was smooth and cold, authoritative without emotion.

"Good morning, Miss Valentine," she said as cheerfully as she was physically able. Beside her was a manila file and she opened it, touching her thumb to her tongue and flipping through the first half. "Although, I suppose that would be an incorrect greeting. My sources state recently you've married that Redfield boy, haven't you? Did you take his name, or keep your own?"

Jill sat up with no small degree of difficulty. "Who the hell are you? What am I doing here? Where's Chris?"

"I beg your pardon. That was rather rude of me. I assumed that because I know so much about you, you must know as much about me, but it appears I was incorrect in my assumption." She brought her hand to her chest and bowed slightly. "My name is Alexandra Wesker; Alex for short. I was once one of Umbrella's top researchers, long before your antics brought the company down. I was hired because of my intelligence. Spencer, the old fool, had some sort of strange faith in me, that I might provide him with the Philosopher's Stone and allow him to become a god, as though he deserved such a right."

"Wesker?" Jill repeated.

"The Wesker Children Project was mine, perhaps you've heard of it."

Jill had, but only a little. After infiltrating Spencer's estate in Europe, the B.S.A.A. had seized control of the files in his database along with the handwritten diaries of his butler. But they had provided very little into the insight of the project, merely that there had been thirteen participants and only two, at the time, were unaccounted for – Alex and Albert.

"_You're _Alex Wesker?"

"Surprised? I suppose you would be. Umbrella was something of a patriarchal company. Most of its top officials were men: Spencer, Ashford, Birkin, Albert; the list goes on. But it was not uncommon for a strong woman to slip through the cracks."

"And what do you want with me?" Jill asked.

The woman shook her head, a grin playing on her tight lips. "It's not you we want." Then she pointed through the glass at Jill, her finger aiming downwards a little. "That child you're carrying..."

Instinctually, Jill embraced her belly as though to guard it.

"Let me explain from the beginning," Alex said and started pacing back and forth across the window. "Spencer and I were colleagues, researchers for a pharmaceutical company before Umbrella was even an idea. Unfortunately, back in those days, women were not at all appreciated for their mental capabilities. We were expected to be housewives and to rear children, nothing more. But I was a cut above other women. I had potential, and while Spencer never gave me due credit until the end of his miserable life, he saw me as an asset to his team.

"For you see, Spencer was a hypocrite. He believed in Darwinism to a tee, that the world was meant only for those strong enough to survive, neglecting the fact that he was, even at that time, a weak old man. I humoured him, of course, because he had the income and resources I required to sustain my research, including faith in me. He allowed me anything I desired: money, equipment, virus samples, test subjects…All because he thought I would actually help him attain eternal life. But I had different plans.

"I deceived him into believing the Wesker Children project was merely an experiment to deduce the elixir of life. But what I wanted, wasn't an elixir for a dying old man, but a new race of human beings, a new evolution in our species."

Jill grinned menacingly. "Someone thought like that once. Started a global war."

"I'm not talking about ethnic cleansing," Alex corrected and stopped her pacing. "White, black, it doesn't matter. All that matters is power. Strong or weak.

"Do you not see, Miss Valentine, that the world is overwhelmed? After the theorized Toba catastrophe, there were only approximately a million humans on the entire planet! Even after the development of agriculture, that number remained less than a billion until 1804. And now, only two centuries later, that number has increased sevenfold! Our resources are running dry. There is not enough food to go around. People are suffering."

Jill leaned forward. "So you think your little scheme is noble?"

"No. Simply realistic. The majority of the population is chaff. They're wasting resources best left to those who truly need it. They don't deserve the life they have."

Jill studied Alex, noticing more and more the small things about her. The gentle accent of her voice. The shade of her hair; the way it was combed so neatly along her scalp. The smooth paleness of her skin. The way her lips turned up in just the slightest grin. Everything about her echoed the man Wesker had once been.

Sensing her thoughts, Alex explained, "That is why I began the Wesker Children project. I selected only the best children from across the globe, children with intellect and physical stamina. And I raised them. I raised them as my own children and provided them with everything they needed to succeed. They were given the healthiest food, vitamins and vaccines. Personal trainers worked with them every day, toning muscle, building stamina. Even as toddlers they were given the education of post-graduates."

She shook her head. "Unfortunately, even from among my golden children, there were fools. Human sentimentality, human weakness, allowed them to die before they could reach their potential. I had them injected with the progenitor virus, so that much at least was truth. I wished for them to live longer. But they could not handle the strain and died. To spare myself any further failure, I decided it best to wait until the final subject was older, passed the age of adulthood, and physically strong enough that his system might handle it."

"Wesker," she said.

Alex nodded. "Albert was my prized child. Everything about him was perfect. There were times when he lapsed into the foolishness, caring for the animal test subjects and…" She turned away and for the first time, Jill saw something of an emotion of her face, but it was gone before she could confirm it had ever been there at all. "Of course, when that happened, I saw to it that those sources of weakness were eliminated. He was raised, devoid of emotion, devoid of affection, because emotion and affection are weaknesses."

"You're insane," Jill spat. But she couldn't help but feel just a little sorry for Wesker. She thought back to the captain she had come to admire. What if Alex had never touched him? What if he'd been free to live as a normal child? Free to have pets and friends? Free to love? What kind of man would he have been then?

"You only think so because your perception has been altered by your feelings towards other people."

"You're contradicting yourself; you claim that affection is a weakness, yet your whole new world operation is to provide a better life for others. So which is it? Do you hate people, or love them? Besides, you still haven't answered what you want with me," Jill said.

Alex grinned, ignoring her first remark. "Although Albert survived longer than the other children, even after injecting himself – no less, the brilliant boy – with an experimental strain of a virus William Birkin developed, he still had one, tiny flaw. The virus was unstable within his body. It was balanced by a Progenitor-based serum – "

"PG67A/W," Jill recited, remembering how recalling the tidbit of information had helped save the world.

"Exactly. That of course meant that he was not capable of handling the virus with purely his body. He was not strong enough. And…" Her tone dropped menacingly, "thanks to your comrades, my beloved child was driven insane. His own plans of dominating the world through Uroboros failed because of them.

"But you, Miss Valentine, are something special. I noticed in Albert's data that, during the years you spent with him, tests were conducted on your body. It appears the t-virus still sleeps within you, dormant, but present. You may perhaps be the only person on the planet exposed the virus who lived to tell of it. And what's more, your body created anti-bodies to the virus.

"It is my finest assumption that your little lovechild with agent Redfield will inherit those antibodies. He, or she, will be born already far superior to other children. And since I have already seen what my upbringing allowed the other Wesker Children, I haven't a doubt that your child will grow up to surpass even Albert in its greatness."

Jill recoiled, crawling backwards across the tiny bed until her back pressed against the wall. Her child…bred to be a monster?

"Of course, you will remain an asset to us," she said. "Once we've acquired the child from within you, you will remain here, like any other animal, for the purpose of harvesting those rare antibodies."

"You'll never get away with this," Jill said.

"How do you figure? You're trapped, under constant surveillance and with nothing to your name but a paper gown. You can't even fight in your condition. We wouldn't want anything happening to that precious little baby of yours." Alex reached for the switch and then stopped, almost as an afterthought. "And if you think your beloved husband will come, spare yourself the heartache. He'll never find us and, in the rare case that he did, he'd find himself torn apart before setting foot on the property.

"Now, best get some rest. I assure you, the experiments I have in mind will be quite trying." The speaker went quiet and Alex waved from the other side of the glass. From beyond the wall, the masked sniper - it was him this time - appeared at her side. She spoke to him, though Jill couldn't read her mouth, and leaned in as though to kiss the visor, before turning and walking away. The masked man remained, staring blankly at her from the other side of the glass.

Jill glanced around her empty cell. The glass was likely bulletproof. There was nothing she could use as an improvised weapon, and even if she could get out, how was she to elude the guards? Or him? Or worse? Where the hell was she even?

She played with her gown listlessly. Like a hospital gown it was thin and papery, with strings keeping it tied at the back and nothing to clasp it closed over her bottom. But she'd long ago lost any sense of humility; her mind wasn't even into it if she hadn't.

She hoped Chris would somehow find a way to her, or else, that the opportunity to escape would present itself. If not…She pulled on the strings, testing how strong they were.

If not, she would kill herself, and her child, before allowing Alex Wesker to do what she planned.

.

_to be continued..._

_._

**Disclaimer: **All _Resident Evil _characters are property of Capcom and their individual creators.

**Notes:** Sorry for the delay in uploading this chapter. I actually had it written for a while, I just never got around to posting it.  
So yes, I have made Alex a girl. Honestly, Capcom seems to be alluding to it, never referring to him/her by any pronoun. Why keep it a secret unless they already know it's not going to definitively be a guy?  
Anyways, I'll see everyone in the next chapter. I'm hoping this won't get too corny. I'm sorry if it is. I typically don't like writing expanded universes for that reason.


End file.
